I need an editor. Nudge nudge, ahem Lina.

I need twelve short stories done by next Tuesday, and I've got no time to edit.
That's where you come in.
(By the way, the italics aren't in there, so just imagine all the thoughts/flashbacks in italics...)

CHALLENGE EIGHT: Bronze Girls


The clatter of the 8 ball hitting the striped orange into the hole sent a rush through his body. Jamie loved billiards, he thought. Except she called it 'pool'. I hated that. She laughed when I told her.

He hit 8 ball again, this time aiming for the striped green. It sailed clean down his imaginary line, straight into the hole. Score.

Setting down the stick--he never actually took the time to learn the equipment names, he just called them as he pleased--and picked up the Red Bull from the billiards table side. Letting out a satisfying "ah", he set it back down and closed his eyes.

He breathed. Not just oxygen, but he breathed life. Red Bull gives you wings, my ass, he thought, because I've already got 'em.

With his imaginary wings intact, he opened his eyes and picked up the stick again. But just as he leaned down to hit the magic 8 again, his line of sight picked up another object.

A blonde.

He smiled to himself. A platinum blonde, even. My, my, what a figure. She's definitely what Jamie would have called a Bronze girl. Bronze girls were what Jamie considered to be the worst type of blondes. She was stereotypical, yes, but who wasn't? Jamie just happened to voice her stereotypes. Loudly.

"Bronze girls are like my mother," she explained to him in sophomore year. "Their hair has a subtly brown color, which is the proof of their natural hair. Also, they're complete bitches."

He had never heard her cuss until that point. Jamie didn't usually swear. She had started to just recently.

Setting down the stick again, he picked up the Red Bull to take another gulp before approaching Miss Blonde--only to find the can empty.

"That's convenient," he muttered to himself. Then, to the female bartender he regarded as Tattoo Chick, he called, "Another Red Bull, and make it quick."

Tattoo Chick nodded back and disappeared under the counter for a total of two seconds before popping back up and throwing him a can. That was the thing he loved about The Palm Trees bar--the workers fully understood what impatience was.

It was a trait he didn't like in himself.

With a twist of the wrist, he poped open the can and gulped down frantically. It was a bad omen, having to get a new can of Red Bull before approaching a blonde. An omen, but not something he would take seriously.

Just then, the blonde turned around.

He nearly choked.

Her eyes...they were green. Cat-like green, just like Jamie. I can't do it to this one, he thought. This time, I...she's too much like Jamie...

Setting the Red Bull down, he leaned against the wall and shut his eyes again. Breathed. Reminisced--though he didn't want to.

Why did she call me first? he wondered. Couldn't she just have done it in her room, all by herself...why'd she drag me into it?

It was senior year of high school, a year until they'd be free. Free from parents, namely. For Jamie, being free from her mother was like going to heaven.

In a way, she got it.

Though I doubt she's in heaven if she committed suicide, he thought. I doubt there's any heaven at all. If there was a God, He wouldn't have taken Jamie away.

Needless to say, he wasn't religious after Jamie's death.

She got the gun from her father. Well, not from him. From his locked drawer. She knew where the key was. She was determined.

It was dramatic. Jamie was always dramatic. First, she dyed her hair blonde. Very blonde.

"I bet Mother would like me now, wouldn't she?" Jamie had cried, the streaks of mascara covering her face like symbols of death. She was stark naked, and didn't care at all. He'd seen her naked before--he was her first, after all. But never naked like this, never naked like...like she was embracing Death, making it easier for him.

"Helen loves you," he murmured, trying to walk closer to her. She shooed him away with the gun in her hand.

"No, no she doesn't!" she cried louder. If only his parents had been home; they would have heard all this commotion, especially at two in the morning. But no, they just had to go to India on the very weekend Jamie planned to off herself. How convenient, eh? "No, Mother loves who she thinks is me. She loves Andrea Jamille Montgomery. But I'm not her."

He couldn't get used to her with the blonde hair. Jamie hated blondes. That's why she had cut off her own blonde, luscious hair in seventh grade and replaced it with a croppy vibrant red number. It was what first attracted him to her.

Her green eyes shined with intensity as her grip on the gun tightened. Her last facial expression was a smile.

Green eyes. That's what brought him back.

The same green eyes that were glancing at him from across the club.

For the first time, he took in her image. Athletic physique, tiny dress, and of course the green eyes. She kept looking at him. It was a flirty, "come get me" look.

He knew he'd oblige.

What am I doing? he asked himself. I never actually look at the blondes.

It was true. He didn't. The only time he actually ever absorbed their image was afterwards, when he was standing over their cold, limp body. Sometimes he'd be dramatic and cut off their hair. Throw it in the pool of blood. Other times he'd keep it simple, with the trademark that made him famous in the ten o' clock news--he'd just dip their fingers in the bronze paint.

Bronze girls...they're complete bitches.

He still remembered her voice.

Walking towards the blonde, he felt his jacket for the knife. Still there. Like always. With each confident step, his heart pounded in time.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Their screams were always the same, once they felt the knife in their stomach. Once they realized he wasn't there to screw them, he was there to kill them. They were all the same. All the blondes had that distant look in their eyes, the O-shape as their mouth, the flaring of the nostrils as their breaths grew quicker and shorter...

He was only a couple feet away now. The blonde was now on full flirt mode, giggling at his sight and twirling her hair.

He was disgusted with her.

And that's why, on a Friday night in The Palm Tree bar, he approached the blonde and gave her his best smile, saying,

"Hi there. I'm Liam. Say, are you a natural blonde?"

Horror – Pool – Losing a Friend


Wings, palm trees, the color bronze
 
Thank you, darling.